THE EFFECT Comes to ASB Waterfront Theatre Next Year

The Effect comes to ASB Waterfront Theatre in 2024. Performances run 16 April - 11 May 2024.

A sizzling chemistry lesson from Succession’s writer, Lucy Prebble, on whether love sits in the heart or in the brain.

“I’ll tell you what I want. I don’t want to reason with you. I want to know right now, in this moment, what you feel.”

When Connie and Tristan sign up for a clinical trial to test a new antidepressant, they fall for each other. Hard. Sealed off from the outside world, they’re ready to break all the rules. But are their feelings real or nothing more than a side effect from the drug that’s firing a dopamine hit to their brains?

British playwright Lucy Prebble shows all the razor-sharp flair that made her a star writer on the smash hit Succession in this deft dissection of medical ethics and the nature of human attraction – fresh from a critically acclaimed 2023 season at London’s National Theatre.

As the couple’s illicit romance throws the trial off course, tensions flare between the two supervising psychiatrists, who turn out to have a messy history of their own.

And, as both the dosage of the drug and the emotional stakes increase, a wider debate plays out on the medicalisation of depression for profit by the pharmaceutical industry. “There’s no such thing as side effects. They’re just effects you can’t sell.”

2026 Theater Fans' Choice Awards - Live Stats

Best Lighting Design - Top 3

1. Jen Schriever, Michael Arden - The Lost Boys

38.7% of votes

2. Jack Knowles - Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Across New York)

11.2% of votes

3. Kevin Adams - Chess

6.7% of votes

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